Press Release 20/09/2012

BIRTH STATISTICS OF THE BASQUE COUNTRY (ENAC) 1ST QUARTER 2012

Births were down 2.8% in the first quarter of 2012

40% of mothers were aged 35 or over and 36% were unmarried

In the first quarter of 2012 the figure for births in the Basque Country stood at 4,919, which was a drop of 2.8% compared to the same quarter of the previous year, according to Eustat data. The number of births was down in all provinces, but this decrease was not evenly distributed: in Álava the fall was 0.5%, in Gipuzkoa it was 2% and in Bizkaia it was 4.1%. Specifically, in Álava 788 babies were born, 2,454 in Bizkaia and 1,677 en Gipuzkoa.

In the distribution of births according to the age of the mother, there continued to be a clear preponderance of the 30-34 year-old age group, in which 41.3% of the births took place. This group was followed by the group immediately above it (mothers aged 35-39), which accounted for 33.2% of births and was ahead of the 25-29 age group, which accounted for just 14%.

Despite the general decrease in the number of births compared to the same quarter of 2011, the number of women who were mothers aged 40 or over increased, with the number of births rising from 300 to 321 in 2012. The babies born from these women accounted for 6.5% of the total, exceeding the 5% of recent births from mothers under the age of 25.

Births outside of wedlock accounted for 36.3% of the total, a figure 2.8 percentage points up on that from the first quarter of 2011. Gipuzkoa, with 34.7%, was the only province with figures lower than the Basque Country as a whole, whilst Álava stood at 38.8% and Bizkaia at 36.6%. The maternity age of this group was lower than that for women who have had children, given that 10% of unmarried mothers were under the age of 25.

According to the order of birth for the first quarter of 2012 over half, 2646, were firstborns; 1,861 boys and girls (37.8%) arrived in families that already had another child and the percentage of third place births or above stood at 8.4%.

17.2% of mothers were foreign nationals

In 17.2% of births in the Basque Country during the first three months of 2012 the mother had foreign nationality, which was 2 points up on the same quarter of the previous year. This average was widely exceeded in Álava where it stood at 25.8%, compared to 16% in Bizkaia and 14.9% in Gipuzkoa.

For further information:

Basque Statistics Office C/ Donostia-San Sebastián, 1 01010 Vitoria-Gasteiz Tel: +34-945-01 75 00 Fax:+34-945-01 75 01 E-mail: eustat@eustat.es Contact: Martín González Hernández Tel:+34-945-01 75 49 Fax:+34-945-01 75 01 Further press releases on BIRTH STATISTICS of the Basque Country Database on BIRTH STATISTICS of the Basque Country